The Oil Drum

169 comments on What fraction of America's $4+ gallon gasoline is due to the war in Iraq?

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DownSouth on July 11, 2008 - 9:17am

memmel, I wouldn't say "forever."

Imperial Spain also thought it could go on forever:

Spain at its height could do anything. She could exhaust her treasury and forget her poor, her bankrupts, her devalued currency, her incompentent economy, her overvalued currency, her recessions and depressions, her debts both internal and foreign, her deficit spending, her negative trade balance, as long as she could keep herself at the head of the mission against the infidel, the Islamic threat and the Protestant threat. But eventually reality caught up and imposed the limits that imperial folly had so easily hurdled over.

(Carlos Fuentes, The Buried Mirror)

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Dryki on July 11, 2008 - 9:40pm

Government officials [Spain] have been shocked by the intensity of the downturn now engulfing the country. Car sales fell 31pc in June, industrial production has fallen 5.5pc over the past year and the collapsing property sector is shedding almost 100,000 jobs a month. Miguel Sebastian, the industry minister, said the economy had ground to a halt in the second quarter and was now in "virtual recession".

Virtual. Indeed.

Or how about doubling the US national debt overnight by bailing out Fannie and Freddie? And the reason they have to be bailed out to this degree? That the administration has been continually pushing them to increase leverage and exposure. This crash is intentional.

cfm in Gray, ME, Milliways